 Rod Oram, who's a business journalist with many years experience both in New Zealand and London and New York and all over the place. Wonderful to have you, Rod. Mike Taitoko, who is one of the co-founders of Toha and Calm the Farm, which is a new region ag farm accelerator style programme. We'll love to hear a bit more about that as we get into the call, Mike. We've got Jeff and Justine Ross, who are on Lake Hauia station. And of course, the entrepreneurs behind 42 Below Vodka and wrote a book about that and have really got into consumer brands and premium products for New Zealand and now turn their focus towards regenerative agriculture. So wonderful to have you all on the panel this evening. We're also very lucky to have two EHF fellows, Rod and Mike, are both EHF fellows in the Edmontillary Fellowship who are co-producers of this series along with Pure Advice. So I think at this stage, I'd love to hear from some of our panellists. I'll ask you to just provide any background context and a bit of an introduction to yourselves as well as telling us what regenerative agriculture means to you because there are a lot of definitions out there. So curious to hear. Let's start with you, Mike. Thank you, Alina. Kia ora koutou. Ngamihinu i kia koutou. Ko mai taito kutaku ngau no mani poto aho. Firstly, thanks to your Alina and Pure Advantage Simon and everyone for organising this hui in the series and Kia ora Rod fellow EHF member and also to Jeff and Justine, awesome to be part of this panel with you, legend. Mike Taitoko, I've spent probably the last 20 years, best part of the last 20 years, working in the iwi and Māori economic development space. And during that time, a lot of the work was involved around strategy and commercial stuff, which leans heavily into the primary industry space because that's where most of the assets are tied up. More recently, over the last five to seven years, developed the digital analytics data platform called Takiwa to get much more precise around what we're looking at with regard to strategy and investment decisions into the particularly into land use and particularly the how we benefit from land use across our different asset classes, but also at the same time, how we make sure that we're discharging our roles as kaitiakia, making sure we're leaving a positive impact on the environment, Papatūnuku, rather than a negative impact. More recently, that some of that work led me into partnering with Sean Hendy and Natalie Whitaker to establish Tōhā, which is an impact investment platform. The kind of thesis behind all of that, behind establishing Tōhā was that the three of us, our collective experience of seeing that we could see impact and really impactful projects being driven at the front line, real changes being made. We could also see a lot of failure and a lot of the times we couldn't see how the investment, the loan scout investment could get to the front line to help support that change. So, we decided to have a crack at building the impact investment platform called Tōhā and calm the farm became the first venture that we looked at to stand up. So, we soft launched that about three, four months ago now. Regenerative agriculture transition program looking to get scaled finance down to the front line to help fund the transition both on farm but also for infrastructure and throughout the value chain and supply chain. So, and happy to be here and looking forward to the kōrero kia ora. I'm sorry, there was another question definition of regenerative agriculture. This is a really hot topic in Aotearoa at the moment. I don't know why. You know, we've got technology at our fingertips now that basically means that if you want to know anything or learn anything, you can pretty much do it in a heartbeat, you know, within minutes, if not a day. Anyone who still doesn't understand what regenerative agriculture is and they want to know what it is. Well, if they're asking the question either aren't looking hard enough or don't want to know. You know, we it is a it's a big all encompassing concept around nature and the conservation preservation of nature, particularly as we carry out our farming businesses on farm businesses horticulture, agriculture, arable, whatever it is. At the heart of it is seems to be soil health seems to be right at the heart of that. And there's a lot to that above ground and below ground. But really at the end of the day. I mean, for me, if you want to know what it is, Google it. Then jump on to Road Island Institute. Then jump on to Saver Institute. Then jump on to Kānau Farm and other sites in New Zealand, Quorum Senses. There's amazing sites out there. But the most important thing you can do is go and have a look at some of the farms and you'll know before you even get out of your car and sit in the paddocks around the paddock. You'll know what regenerative agriculture is. Wonderful. Very good points, Mike. Thank you. And we are excited to have somebody from Rodale actually joining us in a few weeks time on one of our conversations that we're about to launch another six series after this. And so we've got Jeff Tach from from Rodale joining us, which will be very exciting. Rod, over to you. Kia ora, Tata. I was just unmuting myself there. Real pleasure to be here. And thank you very much to Alina and to Simon Pure Advantage and Mike and wonderful to be on this with Jeff and Justine as well. I'm a business journalist and I carry quite a broad remit there. This can be extremely useful for driving positive change, but of course business can also drive astonishingly awful outcomes. And as I think about the nature of business and how it fits in with society and the economy, it seems to me that the very essential element is this that in everything we do, whether it's in business, whether it's in farming, whether it's in our personal lives, it's about working with nature and not against it, because that's the only way that we will stop depleting the natural systems of the planet, the earth systems. And we've actually got to turn those around so those earth systems start to recover. And so the planet is more resilient and more capable of being our life support system, which is what it is. We're already at 7.8 billion people, a population that's traveled in my lifetime so far since I was born, and probably heading towards 10 billion or so. So we need extremely healthy ecosystems. So we've got to stop doing all the bad stuff to them. So we give these ecosystems a chance to recover. And there will be positive things that we can do to help ecosystems recover. But I want to stress there's a huge sort of life force in those ecosystems that once we take our sort of foot off the neck of nature, and nature will do an awful lot of the repairing itself. A very simple definition for a regenerative agriculture for me is to make sure that when we farm, when we use land, we do so in ways that entirely works with nature and not against it. Now you can get into all kinds of definitions about the quality of the soil carbon you're building up or the level of biodiversity and all the rest. And that is important. And it's probably really important at some point too that we have some robust standards by which people can measure themselves and then market themselves for meeting those. I want to point out that this big push that seems to be coming from some quarters to somehow reject define regenerative agriculture is really quite odd, because if for example you go to the dairy NZ website. And that's of course, this is the dairy industry funded research organization. A lot of their work is around organized around five farming systems. And they've got all sorts of profitability and environmental outcomes measured on those five systems. But the only difference between those five systems. One metric in there, which is how much imported feed a farm uses. So at level one, there is zero imported feed, and the farm is self sufficient. And at system five, which is pretty high intensity, there is approximately between 25 and 40 plus percent of feed comes in from outside the farm. That's the only metric. So if dairy NZ is not defining its farming systems that in that analyzes more in more detail than that. And I think that there's no need to be very prescriptive about a definition for regenerative agriculture. We just need to grasp the heart of it and then learn that learn about that and apply that the best we can. Wonderful Rod. Thank you. Justine and Jeff, I'll hand it over to you. Look, I'll go first. I guess my lens is quite unique in this agricultural space. Fresh eyes on farming. I have a background in consumer brands and documentary writing and researching, which I think documentaries are sort of the ultimate authentic form of storytelling. Look, what we're hearing and seeing are moves in popular culture. And there's a macro trend of our time with consumers wanting to connect with the source of their food and fibre. And with that, they're saying that the source should be regeneratively farmed. So that's our back or my background is to look at that and predict where it's going. And through my own journey, I've experienced what Malcolm Gladwell would call a cumulative set of advantages. Advantage one was a mother off a dairy farm. Advantage two was a grandfather who was a pioneer in the horticultural sector. And advantage three was that my father took me to live in the bush for a year when I was seven. So I then married this farm boy who became a businessman and we went on an extraordinary journey. And then I wrote a book about this global challenger brand that we built called Every Bastard Says No, which I'm sure the early adopter region farmers could relate to that title. And now that boy that I married has bought a farm. And did I want necessarily to be the custodian of 6.5 thousand hectares, not immediately. But that is my last cumulative advantage. It's that I bring franchise and a different perspective to the opportunity that I think we all have. And I'm not trying to please anyone in the sector. So I just ask questions every day on farm, especially around my pet topics, which are soil, keep it covered. That's a big one for me. And mental health, what I've discovered in being on farm is that it is relentless. And the supporting farmers and come the farm mic is just extraordinary. I'm so excited to see where that goes. And the other thing is animal welfare, big one for me. And I asked lots of amusing questions on farm regularly around that. So I found that it's a sector that has almost as a reflex, an instinct to sort of shame innovators. And then it kind of opens up from there. And I've also discovered that sector stakeholders have a long way to go in the way that they support you on farm in terms of their own knowledge of the regenerative economy and the opportunities. And I think that it's a really easy sell from a consumer brand perspective. Healthier soil, clean food, natural living, my fibre, my food free of toxins and nutrient dense better for me. So an easy sell. The happenstance of my life is that I want this. I think consumers now want it and the planet needs it. And we're in this extraordinary position on this farm to be able to start to make a difference. And my definition is very simple. Lesson more out. That's perfect. The captures it very well. Lesson more out. Wonderful. Let's just briefly start with what the situation is right now for farmers that want to transition. There can be some costs associated with it. So we've had a question come in through the registration of what kind of typical costs you might see associated with the transition to regenerative. Any thoughts on that, Mike? Given that you've spent a lot of time thinking about this. Yeah, we've probably spent at least the last two and a half years navigating through this to see both on both sides conventional farming and regenerative organics to see what this transition costs in time and energy looks like. And I mean, there's more than just on farm transition as well. We're talking about if we're going to build a sector around regenerative agricultural regenerative organics, it's almost end to end right throughout the value chain through supply chains and distribution and beyond to consumers. But from an on-farm perspective, it really depends on the methodology. So one of the challenges with defining regenerative agriculture is you get this continuum of change from regenerative people who famously say they're doing regenerative agriculture but still need to use some chemicals and that you see that mostly on the cropping side of things. Don't see it so much in dairy. Down to the other end where regenerative organics farmers are getting the chemicals off and synthetic nitrogen and everything else off and really focusing on soil health and animal health and everything else that goes with it. We're seeing farmers right now with the right support getting through the transition, funding that out of business as usual costs so budget. So what they were spending last year running a conventional model, they can pretty much run the same budget through the transition and come out the other side in pretty good shape. And that's not even talking about, starting to talk about the resilience that they've started to build back into the farming business model. And then you get the massive challenge we've got with succession and the baby boom is needing to move our farms soon and sell up and we've got massive challenges there and most people will know what that looks like. So there's an opportunity for investors, other farmers, we've got farmers right now who want to buy the farm next door. They've been doing regen for two, three, five years and have seen how they can improve the resilience of the farm again in the business model and so really have confidence to buy the farm next door. So looking for ways to fund that whether it's through more debt or joint venture partners or whatever. And then you've got other farmers right now who are talking to us about wanting to build processing capability on farm and so you have a different type of investment need there and a different type of investor model. So there's a huge range of investor needs by the farmers and throughout the supply chain and it's a conversation that you could spend a week having in a young packet that's complex but it's exciting and incredibly doable so we can talk about that one all day. Thanks Mike. I'd like to also put that question to Jeff but before you do answer that I would love to actually ask you and invite you to introduce yourself as we skip to you, sorry. Kia ora kata kō Jeff Takueno. Thank you all, Kia ora Mike, Kia ora Rod. Look as Justi said I guess our viewpoint comes from two lens as one is from consumer brands and as Justi said we're starting to hear more and more from customers from tunes around the world that there is a demand for regenerative source products food and fibre and secondly our relatively recent acquisition and return to farming after many many years. Look as Mike said I don't think there's going to be a clear definition to regenerative agriculture as much as we'd love to have one. Coming from the brand world, the word brand has existed for probably 60 years but I don't think anyone's got a clear definition of that yet. Neither do they have digital marketing for instance to use another more recent analogy. So regenerative really is for me and perhaps in hindsight if we had been involved we would have called it something different but that horse is truly bolted. So let's not try and argue with the reinvention of a language or a term. Let's go with it. In fact I think New Zealand has an opportunity to lead it. We've got a wee bit of catching up to do but we can lead this one. So look my definition really is about diversity of pasture. So if you've got more plants in the ground your animal health should be better because you should even cattle in our instance are choosing rather from two or three plants they're choosing from 20 so that should mean healthier livestock. Should certainly mean healthier soil because rather than two or three root types in your soil you've got more than 20 and that's going to create greater transfer of nutrients through the soil better bacteria, better fungi because this shows had far better panellists on that topic. Look as Jussie said it should also mean less and more out from what we've seen in our brief trials from what we're hearing that seems certainly true and the last and probably the biggest really is that soil is probably the unsung hero in sequestering carbon. So healthy soils have a heat more organic matter in them. As I've pretty recently learned that organic matter is full of carbon so the healthier soil the more carbon in the soil the better for the planet. So my definition is just more diversity. It's going to help us on farm. It's going to help the planet. Fantastic. That's a great point you've got there around soil carbon being pretty new in terms of our thinking around sequestering carbon. Rod, I wonder if you've got any thoughts around the possibility for some sort of a carbon market that can work around soil sequestration as we have with the emissions trading scheme and trees and so on. Yes absolutely. Obviously the key to that is being able to measure soil carbon accurately and a lot of works going into that. There's obviously a big pushback on that idea because people are saying a number of things. First of all that soil carbon can be quite variable through the years through the seasons and thus we need to find a way to sort of smooth that out hopefully naturally in terms of the soil being more stable but also in the measurement. But there's also another pushback coming from people saying well in New Zealand we've already got in many places pretty high levels of soil carbon. But I think that's a very relative and misleading number because it's relative to the rest of the country. It's relative to depleted soils in many other places in the world. It's not as it should be relative to the huge potential that's there. And of course I'm extremely excited about soil carbon not just for all the farming benefits but because of the enormous opportunity to be pulling more carbon out of the atmosphere and thus reducing our parts per million up there and thus easing the pressure upon climate change. And so I'd love to see farming deeply integrated into that whole system. So lots to work on and I think those opportunities are starting to become more widely discussed. Yeah absolutely. And it strikes me that we haven't funded and done a lot of the science that's needed in New Zealand to actually start making the government or the industry leaders more comfortable with backing Regenag. Any thoughts, Mike, around how what Takiwa is doing can help support the case? I think one of the biggest barriers we've got right now to really getting traction with Regenag in New Zealand is it goes back to that definition but it also goes back to the inertia that the conventional farming sector has in New Zealand and I mean that's a lot of criticism. It is what it is and so the infrastructure whether it's the physical infrastructure or the financing infrastructure to fund the growth of the sector over decades has been built to support a particular way of farming and so the headwinds we get right now are quite natural and that is Regenerative Agriculture is what does it mean and how do we know it's going to be better than what we're currently doing and there's this whole narrative around that creates the headwinds that really make it hard for government for the agencies to support the sorts of science we need to start to break through this. We know that there's been some reasonable bids made into government, into the agencies for science funding to be provided into Regenerative Agriculture and they really struggle. Well, they don't get across the line at the end of the day that any proposals around Regenag have failed to get across the line over the last few years and I think that's a lot of that has got to do with the criteria that you have to, the threshold you have to meet around science excellence to show, you know, what is this kind of natural biological thing you're talking about, we want to do real science and so I think that's created a huge barrier to the change. I think we're about to kind of cut through that. There's enough momentum coming out of groups like Aotearoa Circle. I think MPI have just commissioned a piece of work just recently, Sam Lange and Gwen Grillai are carrying out that bit of work. So I think we're seeing these, the windows just slowly cracking open but we actually need to bust it open pretty quickly to get a New Zealand context but from a science perspective, I mean it doesn't take much to find out what the pair of you published work globally around soil, carbon sequestration and Regenerative Agriculture and the impacts of that on climate and fresh water and healthy food systems and health population. I mean there's no, it's out there so we just need to look a bit harder for it and we'll find it. Can I add another thought? I think there's a strange psychology going on because on one hand New Zealand farming systems over the last 30 years have been genuinely innovative and a very interesting piece of work out of our Land and Water National Science Challenge is that the innovation cycle here in agriculture is literally twice as fast as the United States but it's still very slow. It takes almost two decades for a proven piece of a big step in science and technology to become ubiquitous in the farming system but what I've found strange over the last few years is that the farming seems to have lost its mojo a bit in terms of that confidence in being able to innovate and I can understand some of the financial pressures because the dairy sector in particular has completely overcooked its business model at least the intensive farmers have and there's very high debt levels now in the dairy sector overall but there's also a sense that amongst some farmers that they're being so dumped on by the rest of society and what I've come across only secondhand and I'd be interested in Mike Jeff and Justine if you've come across this directly about farmers apparently who don't like the term regenerative because they feel that it's disparaging about what they're already doing or what they've been doing for a long time and I think that's the wrong way of looking at it. At any one time we do by and large the best we can we know about is to say well look we thought that was best but now we're moving on and I think just to try to encourage farmers and scientists to go well actually there's this whole debate globally about land use and food and farming let's be part of that debate and a really central part of that debate is about rebuilding ecosystems and so I think we need to be very positive Rod, can I jump in and just say exactly that so I've spoken to a lot of farmers about the term regenerative and there's kind of this defence of you towards it because most farmers are saying hang on a minute we're already regenerative our pastures regenerate from one year to another and the term regenerative apparently came from the US where crops like soybeans were put in the ground they're sprayed to buggery, fertilised to buggery harvested then they're sprayed again everything killed off and then a new crop would start so there's no regeneration, there's no diversity no sort of all those types of things whereas in New Zealand most of our grasses like rye grasses, clovers etc do regenerate from year to year so that's why there's this defence of view towards it and that's why there's a search for a definition because most farmers are saying hang on I'm not sure about this bloody new term what I'm suggesting is just forget the term for a moment it is what it is that horses bolted let's New Zealand agriculture do what typically it's always done which is be a leader grab it understand that the more diversity in our pastures, the more diversity in our soil there's going to be better for all of us, better for our livestock better for soil health, less import, less inputs if we can kind of start understanding those principles we don't need to put a formula to it as much as some would love to and every farms different so there's never going to be one formula that suits all if we can kind of embellish come up with our own view on it, put it on our own farm start developing it and then start profiling it I think we can come out of this really well and as Jussie said we can start talking to a growing consumer base and ideally earn a premium for it without any further inputs or investment sorry Jussie I just wanted to, I think that it would be useful to hear the Jeff keeps saying the horses bolted we're dealing with the name Regen and it's a stumbling block and Mike, you said it is from an investor interest perspective and it creates some negative energy farmers are struggling with it for the reason Jeff just outlined and Rod's pointed that out there was the name that you came up with we'll call it diverse pastures but that's a new language I'm not suggesting that but that's kind of what it is to me at least so the thing is that we're just getting hung up on it and as Jussie said we've just got to move on and create our own narrative around it and then tell that story over and over and over again what does it mean for us in New Zealand I think there's a lot of merit in that although the danger we would face is that the word regenerative now has very wide use and understanding so for example just last week Unilever one of the world's largest food processes announced a billion euro climate and nature fund is the title and at the same time it announced that all of its suppliers would need to meet a regenerative agricultural code and that's the term on their journey to being net zero on products by 2039 so to me it's like the word sustainability or a better example is democracy we kind of roughly know what we think democracy might look like but nobody ever tries to define it to death and so I think we should just sort of lean into it and certainly bring a lot of New Zealand style and language and indigenous knowledge to it so we can own it in our own way from aligning with the global term Just a quick point when Vogue magazine start having articles that say why regenerative agriculture can save the world I think we've got to accept that that term has bolted and what the better headline is to follow up that headline is why New Zealand is leading regenerative agriculture so we like the term or not, let's lead it and we've got a great head start thanks to a lot of existing pastures Mike did you have a comment there? I was just going to add on to all of that what we've been doing with the farmers, working with the farmers and advisers in the region ag space over the last couple of years to help us work through an indicator set in the framework for measuring and tracking the change that the farmers are doing what are the things that the farmers are doing the inputs, the actions, the activities that they're carrying out and what's coming out the other side in terms of outputs productivity and results, so outcomes and we've got quite a broad and diverse set of indicators and data and it needs to be diverse until we can start to work out what good looks like what does excellent look like in the space but with that data coming through from the farms the two sides of that coin what it looks like is you've got the environmental impacts and the climate related stuff like soil carbon sequestration and foolish water impacts on the other side you've got the economic and the productivity benefits or outcomes and so already we're seeing that by starting to minimise and mitigate your environmental risk and footprint and get the synthetic nitrogen off and year one just get it down to zero from say 40 to 90 tonnes a year going on your farm we're seeing farmers get that down to zero at the same time as they go through and we're tracking the results the productivity is looking just remarkable what's happening and so a lot of this stuff goes to the bottom line and we're seeing some remarkable financial results on the other side now there's still a long way to go to get the volume of data and information through and over time we can narrow that data set down but I think it won't take long maybe 12 to 18 months and we're going to have an awesome New Zealand specific and contextual data set and evidence that we can lead the way and this is how you do it and it's not going to be the scientists and the geeks like me or the journalists like Rod Jeff and Justine that tell us how it's done and more we can start to listen and understand and not judge what they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it the faster we're going to learn why there's upside on this thing and how we set about changing the game not just farm by farm but for the country Yeah absolutely and I think you raised an interesting point in there in that regenerative isn't a goal an end goal where you get to it's something that you are continuously doing and looking at and observing the land and trying out different things I'd like to actually ask a question from a farmer now I'm going to combine two questions into one we've got a question from Hamish Bills around finding investors who could be keen to put money on a farm and a business that are using regenerative management principles and then there's also a question from Trevor around developing a region ag farm sharing model where older investors can partner with young farmers is that something you can speak to Mike? Yeah I'll kill to Hamish and sorry I missed the second person's name Trevor I mean awesome question so we've been working on just building up the platform and the framework for bringing investors together with the farmers depending on what the investor needs are and the farmer needs so you've basically got two stacks you've got the stack of needs that farmers are looking for so is it support to transition through year one and underwrite a bit of the risk are we going to need to bring more feed if we get a climate event or are we going to do we need to put a new feed thing or new troughs or more paddocks and because if you increase your rotation rate from if you dairy farming and you're increasing your rotation rate from 15 to 20 days up to 30 to 50 days there's a high likelihood you're going to need new farm infrastructure all the way through as you said earlier through to buying farms or buying you know pooling with others to buy farms so you've got all these needs for farm that farmers are looking for including processing capability and stainless steel infrastructure so you're on the questions there on the investor side you've got all the way from what local governments are prepared to invest in regional councils in order to mitigate out and start to invest in some of the environmental mitigating strategies like we do now if we can prove it up to philanthropies and impact investors who might want little or no return on their money but are prepared to put it into things that we can prove will make a difference all the way up to banks who are prepared to put debt into this space without penalising the farmers but rewarding them because we can prove it's a bit more bankable model and all the way up to private equity and capital markets and so you've got these two stacks so the answer to Hamish I think is absolutely opportunities to match investors with farmers right now but there's a bit of a process to go through to look at what those needs are on both sides across the stack and to Trevor's question farm shares got to be I think it's one of the obvious and also a simple solution but we've decided to minimise the infrastructure costs and capital costs we need as we go on to as we look at expanding so and there's some really good platforms and examples of where that's working well and we've been talking to one of the outfits in the US that are doing an amazing job with sharing infrastructure but also bringing going once through on to the farm and sharing in the equity and upside of the investment into the farm itself so that's one of the ways of doing this. Yeah wonderful thank you and I'd like to come in a minute to Jeff and Justine with a question around consumer driven trends but just a quick question while we're with you Mike around what kind of investments are underway and planned that are directed towards existing marakai initiatives or iwi and hapu led community gardens that have goals beyond just commercial access. I don't want to hog the oxygen from the panel because these guys are legends and so very quickly look I think it's there's some Ngai Tahu have been doing some awesome marakai projects around the marae. It's definitely post-COVID during and post-COVID is a massive, the Corridor has gone up tenfold around planting the gardens and providing food to your local whanau and communities and so from a region ag perspective there's definitely opportunities to say how do we invest in the capability building and infrastructure that needs to go into helping build a sustainable marakai industry from a iwi Māori whānau community and hapu community perspective but for all our communities there's definitely a chance to invest in shorter supply chains and growing those food close to the home if not at home. So it's an awesome question and it's a really timely one and there's some cool stuff happening but we need much more of it to happen. We're going to ride out the next wave, the next pandemic, a matter of if not, when? Indeed. A question come through on the Pure Advantage Instagram. How can consumers in New Zealand support Regene Ag through investment? So how do consumers vote with their wallets? I think, look, the most important thing that they can do is buy the products and develop an awareness of where the fibre and the meters is going and you've got people like Maggie Marilyn for example an extraordinary New Zealand designer who has now an amazing circular line which is all about sustainability and there are just amazing New Zealand brands and innovators out there who are actually on farm are looking to diversify by creating their own products so it's really building an awareness and voting with their wallet for those innovators and if I just could I'd just like to respond to a question if that's all right from Louise who says that the third part of the environment and economy sphere in Regene is social and that mental health of farmers in rural communities is an integral part of Regene Ag and here on the farm for us we can really see the strain and that's in a very well supported community of people. It's definitely an undertaking of our lifetime and I have a huge amount of empathy now for the incredible pressure that farmers throughout our country are under and I really want to support that question and thank you for it Louise and I think also that farmers like ourselves have to reach out into the community as well and support our local communities as best we can. Very good point Justine, thank you and for those who want to dive a little more into that topic we had a conversation two weeks ago with John O'Frew Sam Lang and Jules Matthews about community and mental health and those elements of Regene agriculture. Super important conversation for our rural communities. Rod I want to ask you what you think the role of government could be? I would certainly say that the government needs to respond to a great sort of grass roots if you're part of the expression demand for this and I'll give you a couple of examples of why government isn't particularly helpful. So for example we've had a sustainable farming fund and we've had a sustainable farming fund and we've had a sustainable farming fund now from the government for 18 years and in the first 17 years it funded a thousand projects but only to the tune of $150 million so in other words here in New Zealand government is notoriously good at handing out micro sums to multiple projects and that is there's other mechanisms for that like crowd funding and the sort of work that Mike's doing government shouldn't be funding at that kind of level but in terms of trying to facilitate the shift absolutely but I come back to the biggest help that I think government could be to push in a very constructive way for the work that is going on in the five-year work programme that's underway which is a joint initiative of the primary sector and government to work out how to measure greenhouse gas emissions on farm and then price them and I'd love to see that work extended to soil carbon and to other ways in which carbon is sequestered on farm because I think those pricing incentives would then be very valuable to farmers the next thing is dairy New Zealand and I'm picking up here on the suggestion that dairy New Zealand is funded by a mandatory levy on dairy farmers and there is a board that decides how that money is then spent and so it's entirely appropriate that those dairy farmers persuade the board and that's the management of dairy and said to shift some funds into the science of regenerative farming and then when we look beyond that Greenpeace was very helpful about six weeks ago by proposing a billion dollar regenerative farming fund I had caution in my own mind about some aspects of it so there would be funding for fencing waterways for example but there was a lot of sense in that report both about the science of regenerative agriculture but also a big funding measure and then for me another big hope and Mike already touched on this is the Aotearoa circle which is a combination of business and government leaders putting natural capital right at the heart of what we do so two important thrusts of the Aotearoa circle is the sustainable finance forum which will be producing its final report late this year and made very good progress in its interim report last year but then the work it's doing on futures that just came to its first level of fruition last week and one of the three focuses there is on a productive, sustainable and inclusive food system where the absolute driver of this is regenerative agriculture so I think that's a very very interesting combination of business leaders and government leaders that might get us some traction on this and particularly if it's Dove's tales with the work of the sustainable finance forum which mission is to green finance I don't like this phrase but to green finance and to finance green but I think that will be a good way to get it money Yeah it's great to hear that those kind of conversations are going on in Aotearoa New Zealand I heard an alarming suggestion from Christiana Fageris on an RNZ webinar where she said if we are going to invest in decarbonisation we don't have the ten years that we thought this pandemic has meant that all the money is going to be spent within or at least committed within the next three to 18 months which is quite terrifying in terms of thinking about coming up with those sorts of solutions to decarbonise now I think that is a role for region ag to play in that Yeah absolutely Okay there is a question here that I would like to put to Justine and Jeff from Mark Anderson Great work in amazing landscapes on Lake Hauia Station carbon neutral is a large claim to be making so how are you verifying these claims at the early stage mainly regarding building soil carbon and creating a circular regenerative system So the carbon neutral piece we've used a couple of calculators which are pretty kind of back of the envelope type things trees that count have one, beef and lamb have one so you basically put it in your stock numbers your type of farming system that will give you your total emissions profile and then you add in what your plant is, you know, it might be exotic forests it might be some regenerating native forests and it comes up with a bit of a ledger how much you're admitting, how much you're used to requesting and we've now taken that a little further and working with a company called Advice who have done that far more scientifically so that's where we are the where some science could help because there's no, I think we've talked about this at the start of this there's no measure as yet for what soil is doing there's some beliefs that soil is a fantastic sequester and you only need to put your spade into some heavy organic matter and a healthy soil to kind of believe that there's also some understanding that tussock which is a big part of our high country station snow tussock is a great sequester but as yet out of the calculation math that we're using I'd love to see it in, it would make our position a little better again Yeah fantastic still a lot of the work to be done there and it's great to hear that the likes of Gwen Grillay and Sam Lang have got that research in developing a white paper very good we've got just a few more minutes here so I've got time to take a couple more questions if you've got any what you want to get into the Q&A box we also will be looking to answer some of these questions live on social media in the coming week because we're not going to be able to get to everything Hamish has got an interesting comment there about methane from ruminants also very hard to measure but that hasn't stopped them taking it into account so really interesting comment there that just because something is hard to measure doesn't mean we should we should be doing it I want to just present the fact that we are in a not a very normal position in the world right now in that we've very much seen just the beginning of what the COVID-19 pandemic, what the effects of how that's looking on our economy curious to hear from any of you if you think this pandemic has accelerated a need for a region ag or if it's presented new opportunities that perhaps we didn't have before Rod any thoughts on that I'm really wrestling with that one because overall in terms of trying to get a sense of how much our views and our desires really have changed now that we're getting back to some semblance of normal but I still think there's people have sort of glimpsed enough during lockdown here in New Zealand to be reminded rapidly that the sort of benefits ecosystem benefits that we're talking about here from Regent of Agriculture will give us some of those things that we desire one of the curious ones has been the real problem with meat processing plants particularly in the United States with high level of COVID cases and some people have been saying well look that's a perfect example of why we need to have plant based foods or cellular agriculture and growing things from stem cells I think that's misplaced because our avatars here have been able to function very well without causing illness amongst their people so I think that's misplaced but if we keep tying back the twin desires of better human health from what we eat and better planetary health from how we farm and that takes us right back to the Lancet commission and other work I think we can really get people quite excited about this and I want to make one last point about our opportunity in New Zealand there's increasing competition from plant based foods or plant based milks and all the rest and also cellular agriculture but those can only drive down the negative impact on ecosystems to zero or some plant based could be positive but we've got a real opportunity with our pastoral farming here to go beyond negative to very positive attributes and so ruminant animals and the way they graze are really important for building up soil carbon for example and hence the great savannas and prairies in the past so I think that if we understand that in farming this way we can go on to a trajectory of increasing positive benefits and then bring in our very distinctive flora and fauna and landscapes and everything else here in New Zealand I think we've got a terrific thing to be able to offer consumers a few minutes left here so I'd love to give each of our panellists the opportunity for any final words or thoughts that you'd like to get out there about a minute each I think we'll have or 45 seconds each, let's go with that Mike. Thanks Alina, just to build on what Rod was saying I think Covid is just a drop in the bucket compared to what's facing us with the existential threat of economic impacts of Covid we've already seen the impact economic and environmental impacts that climate's having on us right now that's only going to get worse and so Covid for me is just a tip of the iceberg that says guys pay attention there's a reason we've gone down this rabbit hole of Covid we've created the food systems and the industrialised systems we've created the industrialised education systems right now which is why we argue over the definition of region ag rather than use our sensors and our sensors to work out for ourselves what it is we have to wait for someone to give us the answers rather than working out for ourselves and so I see regenerative agriculture, I'm quite passionate about this because of the research our science team has done on this and our business analytics and a whole bunch of other domains as probably the biggest opportunity we have just kind of trainwreck around and we'll do the best we can with the time we've got to make a positive difference so thanks for having me Thank you Mike, Jeff and Justine, any final words? To say that we don't just need 10 or 20% of farmers to come with us on this, we need 95% to see that for the good of the planet and for profit for the health of our animals, for the good of our communities there are so many important reasons and many of us during lockdown were privileged to be involved in the magic of Zoom and to hear directly from the clients we supply that they themselves want us to be walking the regenerative path so the demand is there from all over the world from our clients that we supply so we all need to lean into this opportunity for all of those reasons, for our country and for the planet and to tell a great story along the way and I'm excited for spring Jeff did you want to add anything? No, I think that's a great summary Thanks Alina Thank you for joining us Rod, over to you for any final thoughts Yes, I would just like to add urban farmers into this so you could apply regenerative farming practices in your garden or in a food growing small plot in the city or it'd be really exciting to see those people grazing on Longakiki on Wontree Hill, grazing regeneratively and indeed Stuart which is a very interesting US funder of regenerative agriculture supports micro farmers in Detroit and I just think it'd be tremendously exciting first of all to get more people growing food in the towns and cities but doing so in a regenerative way better to those people who are doing the really hard yards on the sides of mountains or in other more hostile environments Wonderful point Rod and that's a lovely point to end on as I tell you just a little bit about our next upcoming webinars, thank you all again for joining us it's been a fantastic conversation and as I said Pure Advantage will be addressing some of those on the social media on Instagram and Facebook so keep an eye on there this recording will be available on the Pure Advantage website PureAdvantage.org as well as the Edmund Hillary Fellowship YouTube channel so we've got an exciting new series of webinars to announce in the coming six Mondays we've just had so much great momentum around this series that we feel compelled to continue the conversation so Ursula's put a slide up here where you can learn a little bit about what's coming up in the future next week we've got a conversation around what is regenerative organic so that's a conversation that's been happening a lot over in the United States where they've got a voluntary standard around it so we've got Robyn O'Brien, Scott Lawson and Jeff Tachak from the Rodale Institute there so that'll be a really exciting conversation building farm resilience with Greg Hart and Gary Williams I know there was a question that came through the chat today around the farmers up in the Hawkes Bay in the drought so Greg Hart has got a regenerative farm up in the Hawkes Bay and will be able to speak a little bit to that expanding a little bit beyond just the regenerative agriculture remit with this series into other forms of regenerative economy so we've got regenerative forestry coming up in three weeks time very honoured to have Dame Anne Salmond on there as well as Dr Dave Hall urban regenerative agriculture as Rod has just mentioned is certainly going to be a big part of it so it doesn't have to all be on the rural farmers there's certainly a part that city dwellers can play so we've got Sheldon Leavitt from Kaislackle here Wellington, Sarah Smuts, Kennedy up in Auckland in Bailey-Pairman from Cultivate Christ Church so that'll give us a good sense of what's going on across the country regenerative tourism after that with Trent Yeo and Dr Suzanne Beckon from over in Australia and a final episode on really tying everything up towards a regenerative economy in New Zealand so lots of great conversations happening in the coming six weeks details on each of these will be coming out to you I think from Pure Advantage's mailing list and on all the social channels across EHF and Pure Advantage and we look forward to seeing you next time so thank you so much for joining us again Ka kite, have a wonderful evening